Questions about tomato flowers and cross pollination

Hello!

This year I am spending a lot of time looking at tomato flowers from several varieties I am growing out including Mission Mountain, selections from panamorous that I grew last year and others.

I am flagging plants with exserted stimgas and I am hoping to keep selecting for them in future generations to encourage crosses.

In all this looking at flowers over the last weeks I have a few questions that came up that I couldn’t answer…

  1. Some plants have flowers that seem to always be exserted from the time they open. Others exsert their stigma at different times. I wonder if someone can explain when the pollen receptivity is the most important. Does a flower need to have its stigma exserted already by the time it opens to be open to cross pollination? For these plants that exsert their stigmas at different times (and it seems to be somewhat variable by each flower on the same plant) is the chance of cross pollination much less than plants with flowers whose stigmas are always exserted?

  2. Likewise what about stigmas that are just barely exserted, as in the green tip is just showing out of the bottom of the cone or in line with the bottom of the cone?

  3. What about flowers who’s stigmas have seemingly thrust through the side of the cone and sticking out more or less sideways from an otherwise closed cone?

  4. If the flower is aimed sideways vs down does it have more chance for crossing? I am assuming yes since pollen will likely shed downward from gravity, but perhaps wind is also a factor. Thoughts on that?

  5. I noticed a plant that has a different number of petals on one flower than the rest. That one flower has 6 petals while the rest are 5. Is this an indication of a mutation and the possibility that the children have different traits?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!!

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